


every stone you stood upon shifted, except for me

by mollivanders



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-10
Updated: 2010-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 11:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione’s less bothered than she thought she would be (all her life spent fighting and preparing for a world that would one day just vanish).</p>
            </blockquote>





	every stone you stood upon shifted, except for me

**Author's Note:**

> **Title: every stone you stood upon shifted, except for me**  
>  Fandom: _Harry Potter_  
>  Rating: PG, implied  
> Characters: Harry/Hermione/Ron  
> Summary: For lenina20 at the [Shiny Happy Comment Ficathon](http://dollsome.livejournal.com/1484948.html?thread=10452884#t10696084) for her prompt _where magic isn't real_. Word Count - 1498. I know not the meaning of 'comment' fic.  
>  Spoilers: Through the end of Book 7.  
> Disclaimer: JKR owns Harry Potter. I own nothing.

At first she thinks her wand is broken.

When she wakes in the morning (early, always the first up), she sneaks out of bed and casts a quieting charm on the door as she slips out but it squeaks loudly all the same. When she makes it downstairs, wondering when the steps became so ornery, she has to drag the heavy cast iron pan out of the drawer herself and wait for the stove to heat up before she starts cooking.

All the while, she runs through the list of things she has to do before and after work (never a dull moment) and adds stopping by Ollivanders to her list.

It’s not until Ron comes down the stairs does she realize _The Daily Prophet_ never came, but she’s entirely unprepared for the scene waiting past their curtained windows (wizards yelling in the middle of the street, one man crying on the sidewalk holding a forlorn looking cat to his chest, their neighbors tossing magical books in the garbage).

Harry rushes downstairs and locks the door, sharing a look with Hermione before he explains to Ron, “I think we should wait to go out today.”

 

Hermione’s less bothered than she thought she would be (all her life spent fighting and preparing for a world that would one day just vanish). She finishes cooking breakfast and asks Ron to help her with the laundry, since they’re not going out in the chaos. Harry and Ron take turns with her, keeping watch at the window until the wizarding world begins to calm down.

 _The Daily Prophet_ arrives at their window the next morning, delivered by a very confused looking wizard who brushes aside their Sickles and mutters there’s no point. Hermione and Harry share another look and when Ron asks them why they’re not more worried, Harry answers for them both.

“The Muggle world isn’t as bad as when I was a kid.”

 

When they leave the flat together, the two boys holding her hands, other hands on useless wands, Hermione takes stock of what’s left (Madam Malkin’s, Flourish and Blotts, Florian Foretescue’s Ice Cream Parlor) and what’s not (Knockturn Alley is completely abandoned, bits of scrolls and quills fluttering in the empty passageway).

Gringotts is boarded up with a sign warning _LOOSE DRAGONS! KEEP OUT!_.

The Leaky Cauldron, unsurprisingly, is not closed (packed with as many wizards drinking as those forcing their way out to London to see what else is going on).

Ron, Hermione and Harry make their way to the Ministry of Magic where Kingsley Shacklebolt is waving his arms around trying to quiet the mass of people around him, his voice hoarse from screaming into a megaphone.

“WE DON’T KNOW YET!” Harry, Hermione and Ron hear him belt scratchily. “WE HAVE SPECIALISTS FROM ST. MUNGO’S LOOKING INTO IT AND WE WILL KEEP YOU POSTED!”

“So you think we’re sick?” some wizard yells out from the crowd, someone a few years behind Harry, Hermione and Ron at Hogwarts. “Our wands sick too?”

A snicker rises from the crowd and Rufus continued waving his arms.

“Maybe I should do something?” Harry asks quietly and Hermione and Ron looked at him as if he were mad.

“Are you mad?” Ron just asks and Hermione nods in agreement. “Harry if they think you know what’s going on they might blame you again and without magic, we can’t fight a mob. We should contact Shacklebolt quietly.”

(On their way back to the apartment, they stop for ice cream where the server cheerily reminds them just because the world had stopped didn’t mean he didn’t still have bills. Ron paid for all three of them, rather cheerful on the way back to the apartment.)

“This means we can do anything, doesn’t it?” he asks and Hermione stares at him, confused. “We can be accountants or plumbers or… we could walk onto the Chudley Cannons Pitch and nobody could stop us!”

“Ron…” Hermione cautions before it hits both Harry and Ron.

“They have to fix this,” Ron amends in a whisper. “We can’t live without Quidditch.”

“I can’t live without my _broom_ ,” Harry adds in a soft moan and Hermione laughs, pushing them both away to commiserate.

“You can always read _Hogwarts, A History_ with me,” she teases, skipping out of reach as they roll their eyes at her.

 

With real chores to do, they set up a schedule of cooking, cleaning and shopping so none of them have to take it all on. Slowly they learn which stores would take magical money and those that wouldn’t. With Gringotts still boarded up there was no way to exchange money ( _BY ORDER OF THE CENTRAL MAGICAL BANKING SYSTEM TO AVOID A PANIC_ read the new sign outside the bank) and partly out of boredom, partly out of necessity and partly out of curiosity, Hermione, Harry and Ron decided to take jobs in the Muggle world.

(Ron immediately tries to become an accountant – “for the adventure,” he said. Harry and Hermione didn’t have the heart to tell him he needed a degree for that and just pour him a beer when he comes back disheartened.)

Ever practical, Hermione takes a job at a library and begins researching to see if anything like this had ever been heard of before. She came across an article from the 1840s and called up Eloise Midgen at _The Daily Prophet_ to see if she’d help investigate the matter – tackling the issue from both Muggle and magical made the most sense, Hermione decided.

The boys, for reasons she can’t fathom, decide to become sports reporters (“You don’t even know Muggle sports, Ron!” she reasoned). Every night for a week Harry goes over the details of football with Ron before calling up Dean Thomas who actually _is_ a sports reporter to get them jobs. Ron and Harry still ask her to edit their work but even she has to admit, they're good at what they know.

(Even still, some luxuries have to be cut and they huddled closer under the covers for warmth, Ron’s arm circled around her waist and Harry’s hand looped with hers under the pillow. She doesn’t get up as early, but she doesn’t mind.)

 

It takes three years for the magical world to deconstruct. After a year of stasis, the Ministry of Magic issues a final order to Gringotts to convert the population’s savings into the Muggle currency of their choice before closing its doors and Hermione, Harry and Ron take time off their now full-time jobs to watch the ceremonial closing.

“If anyone can fix this, Hermione, you can,” Ron murmurs in her ear and she presses a kiss to his cheek, understanding.

He still talks about Quidditch in his sleep.

 

It’s easier for Harry and Hermione to transition back to the Muggle world, even after ten years of the magical one. “Just like riding a bike,” Harry quips to Hermione and she shares a smile with him as Ron asks from the stove, “What’s a bike again?”

They don’t bother getting their drivers’ licenses – they live in London – but they do attend the auction of the last of the wizarding brooms. Harry spends his entire year’s savings on a vintage edition Firebolt and Ron and Hermione don’t even question it (they work overtime for another year and don’t tell him why).

Even with the Ministry gone, it takes a while before the wizarding shops close. Some of them refuse to close and just repackage their stock to serve Muggles and magical folk, sparking editorials in the now underground _Daily Prophet_. Hogsmeade outright refuses to convert to Muggle services, however, and a group of wealthy wizards and witches form a “Hogsmeade Preservation Society” to maintain it and Hogwarts in the fashion they grew up with.

(Hermione refuses to go to Hogwarts – it’s the one piece of her world she refuses to admit is gone – and Harry and Ron only break her down by telling her it’s preserved as a museum and the library’s still there.)

 

“I never imagined we’d be like this, after the war,” Harry mentions one summer day, interrupting Hermione’s research as he drops into his rocking chair on their porch. “After everything we fought for, everyone we lost… I never thought it’d be a moot point.” 

(Past their front steps, Muggles rush by, oblivious anything has changed, that it was ever different. Hermione still thinks it’s strange they can order drinks at The Leaky Cauldron but she’d rather have it this way than not at all. That’s the point. Before she reopens her book she catches a brief glimpse of Draco Malfoy, hiding behind a cloak as he rushes out one door and into another down the street, and doesn’t pity him.)

Ron passes Harry a Muggle beer (“This Muggle stuff is still too weak, mate”) and turns on the radio before voicing Hermione’s thoughts.

“The point is we’re here, Harry.”

None of them argue with that.

_Finis_


End file.
